THE MUNGOOSE 217 



seldom yielded a good return in skins of various 

 small beasts which otherwise one woiild seldom 

 or never see. 



I believe there are altogether in the Portu- 

 guese East African Province some four or five 

 different varieties of the Mungoose. It is an 

 interesting, amusing, and useful little beast, and 

 the families mentioned comprise the slender, 

 grizzled, banded, white-tailed, and Mailer's. 



These small creatvires are frequently tamed, 

 even by the natives, and are possessed of the 

 appreciable quality of ridding one's abode of 

 cockroaches, snakes, and many other disagreeable 

 forms of life so common to dwellers in tropical 

 Africa. ^Miilst some of the varieties of mun- 

 goose — notably the slender — are more or less 

 solitary in their habits, others are happily 

 gregarious, and their cheery, bustling family 

 parties may often be seen in the forest hurrying 

 to and fro in search of food, and uttering their 

 curious bird-like chirp which in Zanzibar has 

 obtained for them the native name of " M'chiru," 

 which strongly resembles it. 



I have possessed many of these animals, 

 which become so tame that they will dwell in 

 one's pocket or camp up one's sleeve, poking out 

 with disconcerting suddenness from time to time 

 an inquisitive, beady-eyed little head. They 

 devour white ants, centipedes, and scorpions, 

 whilst locusts have no more deadly enemy, and 

 snakes are said to pay a heavy toll. I do not 

 think any animal of my acquaintance is endowed 

 with such vast, such unconquerable inquisitive- 



